RSAC 2026: How AI Is Reshaping Cybersecurity Faster Than Ever

CYBERSECURITY OPERATIONS CYBER RISK VULNERABILITIES & THREATS ICS/OT SECURITY INTERVIEWS Cybersecurity In-Depth: Feature articles on security strategy, latest trends, and people to know. RSAC 2026: How AI Is Reshaping Cybersecurity Faster Than Ever Dark Reading's Kelly Jackson Higgins shares insights on the past, present, and future of cybersecurity after attending RSAC 2026 Conference. Kristina Beek,Kelly Jackson Higgins April 7, 2026 SOURCE: INFORMA TECHTARGET As RSAC 2026 Conference wrapped up its final day Kelly Jackson Higgins, Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading and VP of cybersecurity editorial at Informa TechTarget, took to Broadcast Alley to discuss with Jamison Cush and Sabrina Polin about what she noticed at the conference this year. In a week dominated by conversations around AI, cybersecurity advancements, and industry challenges, Jackson Higgins provided a unique perspective on the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on organizations. Her insights underscored the unprecedented pace at which AI is transforming the cybersecurity landscape, leaving many companies scrambling to adapt as threat actors continue to raise the stakes. Jackson Higgins reflected on the collaborative efforts of Informa TechTarget's three cybersecurity brands — Dark Reading, Cybersecurity Dive, and TechTarget SearchSecurity — highlighting their distinct, separate approaches to covering the cybersecurity industry. With a shared commitment to delivering tailored content for diverse audiences, the brands have successfully avoided duplication while offering a comprehensive view of critical issues. Jackson Higgins described their strategy as a "360-degree" approach, ensuring that CISOs, SOC managers, risk professionals, and others receive the information they need to navigate the industry's complexities. Related:Human vs AI: Debates Shape RSAC 2026 Cybersecurity Trends As the conversation delved into the evolution of cybersecurity over the past two decades, Jackson Higgins shared her observations on the industry's growth and challenges. From the early days of limited vendors and rudimentary threats to today's sprawling ecosystem of 4,000 vendors and sophisticated attacks, the transformation has been remarkable. Yet, some issues, such as authentication and software vulnerabilities, remain stubbornly persistent. Jackson Higgins emphasized the importance of learning from history while preparing for the future, particularly as AI continues to reshape the cybersecurity landscape at an unprecedented speed. Live at RSAC 2026: Our Coverage is the Best of Three Worlds: Full Transcript This transcript has been edited for clarity and length by Informa TechTarget's internal AI assistant. For the full experience, please watch the video, above. Jamison Cush: Hello, and welcome to day four, our final day of live streaming coverage from RSAC Conference 2026. I'm Jamison Cush with Informa TechTarget. And if you missed day one, two, or three, and you'd like to watch it again, check it out on Eye on Tech. We chatted with the cybersecurity experts from Informa TechTarget, as well as thought leaders from WiCyS, ISACA, and other organizations. Related:Geopolitics, AI, and Cybersecurity: Insights From RSAC 2026 Joining me once again to share in hosting duties, senior managing editor from Informa TechTarget, Sabrina Polin. Sabrina, welcome back. Sabrina Polin: Happy to be here. Little bittersweet. It's our last interview of the week. JC: And then once it ends, not to look past what we're about to do here, but Wolverine is going to be down the hall singing or dancing. SP: Yes, PT Barnum also, you know.  JC: That's Hugh Jackman. SP: You might see him if you guys notice a big crowd behind us. We are celebrities, but it won't be for us. It will be for Hugh Jackman. JC: Excellent. Yes. And I always like to use that to segue to our celebrity guest. Absolutely. It's actually our final guest from RSAC Conference 2026. Welcome to Kelly Jackson Higgins, the Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading and the VP of cybersecurity editorial at Informa TechTarget. Kelly, welcome. Kelly Jackson Higgins: Thank you. They got me because they couldn't get Hugh, so I was glad to fill in for him. JC: RSAC pays a lot more for their guests than we do. So, the show is just about in the books. It's all wrapped up, and we've had your team here chatting with us. We've talked AI, people in AI came up a lot, on the line versus in the line. A little bit of politics as well. So, I was wondering what did you see, or what stood out to you from the show this year? Related:RSAC 2026: AI Dominates, But Community Remains Key to Security KJH: Yeah. So, I spent most of my time in meetings rooms with people. So, I didn't see a lot of the show, but one thing that really struck me about the show this year was — last year there was a conversation about "Oh agentic AI is next, and it's going to take a while." Well, it happened way faster. So, I feel like we're in this AI wave is nothing we've seen before in the industry in terms of like cyber advancements. It happened much faster than we expected, and it's happening faster than a lot of organizations are ready. The big conversation I know in the past year was "Well, this is our chance to get ahead of the bad guys." That didn't happen. So now most companies are paying catch-up. And the vendors are all coming out with AI-type tools, some different than others, but it's you have to know what it is behind the behind the curtain. Totally. SP: So, we are here from Informa Tech Target. We've got a lot of experts under our belt. We've got colleagues everywhere at the show this year: Dark Reading, Cybersecurity Dive, TechTarget SearchSecurity. How do you approach covering a show like this with this really incredible group of brands under Informa TechTarget? KJH: That's a great question. We have I'm so proud of this team. We have some of the most talented journalists in the industry and editors, hands down. We work really closely together. We keep our unique brand approaches. You know, our whole strategies are different. But we actually work together. We meet weekly and one of the things we had a massive spreadsheet of planning who was doing what. So, we weren't, you know, duplicating effort. And there wasn't any duplication. And we definitely were sharing each other's content, you know, amplifying it. We all had dinner together. There was one night we were all here. We staggered our arrivals and departures for maximum resources. And we met up for dinner Tuesday night. It was great because it was just we have a really good chemistry with the group which really helps how we work together. And you know, we definitely in some ways compete with each other for stories, but we also like very much respect one another's, you know, approaches, expertise, and really do I think we all kind of benefit from one another's approaches to things. So, yeah. JC: Nice. And it's been a year and a half, I think, just about a year and a half since the brands combined. So just a bigger picture how is that working and playing out and how is that how are you approaching uh just the covering the cybersecurity massive topic in general? KJH: Yeah. So, you know, I think my, you know, like anyone, I was worried, are we going to accidentally cannibalize each other or, you know, duplicate effort? But because we have different audience approaches and content strategies, um, we don't. You might have a topic that we've maybe all three cover, but you're going to get three different types of stories and different information each of those stories. So I like to say we're like a 360 of this of a topic. If you want to read about something, you can read this news story from Cybersecurity Dive that's, you know, made for the CISO cyber risk perspective. You might read a Dark Reading story that has a news analysis secret sauce as we call it, or SearchSecurity, a really deeply researched and technical piece on where you're going to get the full picture of you if you want to research a topic you're going to go there. So, you literally have the best of three worlds I would say with the three brands. I really feel strongly about that, and I've seen it in action the last year and a half. SP: I have to make a Hannah Montana reference because we just had the 20th anniversary best of both worlds. Um, and I love that you said best of three worlds. I just, you know, I know that my audience out here will appreciate that, but um, that's a really amazing.  JC: I have no idea what you're talking about.  SP: Oh my gosh. 20 years of Hannah Montana. Anyway: So it's been 20 years of Dark Reading. Excellent segue if I do say so myself. 20 years of Dark Reading. So that's just about 20 years of RSA and now RSAC coverage. What's changed in from then to now? Is there anything that's drawing parallels? Anything noticeably different? I'd love to hear what you've seen in this industry in this space over the last 20 years. KJH: So, 20 years ago and I wasn't at RSA 20 years ago. We didn't go early days there was a two-person three-person staff. We just didn't have budget for these things. Um, but what I've seen change in the last 20 years and it's been fun looking back, you know, to see what we were writing about in 2006. There weren't very many security vendors back then. A lot of the security products were from networking companies who were selling security tool like firewalls and then there was anti-virus companies. So, there weren't as anywhere near as many vendors there now. So, it wasn't a big trade show. It was more of a conference back then. A little more technical in some ways. You know, it was obviously RSA the company started. There was a lot of emphasis on the encryption algorithms and things like that, but it was definitely the gathering of the industry. I would say, you know, back then when we first started at Dark Reading, there wasn't a fire hose of things happening, news like we have now. So, we were able to really innovate, which was fun, like get to know the industry. One of my first mandates when I was hired — I was employee three at the time, one month after we launched — was to interview the pioneers of the industry and see what they're doing. And these were people who literally there was like an organic, this industry was very organically built. It wasn't like we're going to have a cyber security industry. It just kind of happened.  And the folks who were doing all the hard work like breaking things to find out what was broken and they were the ones who were kind of like forcing the vendors to pay attention to security and their software. So, I got a lot of fun I got to do is I got to interview them and do feature pieces on all these people all the how they got in the industry, what they were doing, all the cool things they were doing, right? So, we really got a good handle on the community and that was it was so small then that kind of everyone knew everyone. So, we got to kind of get to know the industry in its early days. I would say now there's still that feel of the industry, but now we have like what 4,000 vendors, maybe we had like I don't know, officially a dozen or so, and then this networking companies. So, the size is definitely a big thing. And back then there weren't a lot of breaches or threats. It was just very what we would consider kind of cute. You get these little emails from the fake FBI telling you that you did something whereas now you know your whole system your whole networks knocked down and your manufacturing stops if you get ransomware. But there weren't as many like news events happening. We had big breaches, but it wasn't like it is now where it's non-stop. So, I would say the news fire hose is massively bigger and there's more going on. In some ways I look back and I see things that haven't changed, which makes me feel weird that we haven't gotten anywhere with that, but I also see how far we've come and there is a lot more advancement. The more the industry advances, the more the threat actors keep raising the bar. Everything just it's still a constant battle, right? And that's we're seeing that with AI as well.  SP: So, what's something that hasn't changed that you're like, why is this still the same as it was 20 years ago? KJH: I think the one that always took I mean it's like kind of trite now is just like authentication. Like we can't get really away from passwords. We were talking about that 20 years ago. Like when passwords are dead, they're not really dead yet. I mean that we're getting better at evolving with, you know, biometrics and passkeys, but we're still not doing it well. You know, people are still getting breached because they're not doing authentication the right way. They're not doing multifactor. I still think that area could be much better to be honest. And software, you're always going to have vulnerabilities. like it's just I mean the operating systems are better because of what the researchers found and now the companies have their own vulnerability disclosure you know and secure software development strategies, but you can't make it perfect it's always going to be something that could be breakable could be abused that'll happen. JC: I think we chatted with Alissa from SearchSecurity and she did say I think she had a story that password less future might be here she said anecdotally she's hearing that a larger embrace of passkeys. It's the one example or rare example in security where there's convenience tied to security. So, you know, hopefully we're getting closer. KJH: I've been hearing the same, but we're not totally there yet. JC: It's like it's like the paperless office. We waited forever for that. So 20 years of coverage does that help put the current situation in context? Because I'm thinking like Rob Clyde was here earlier this week from ISACA and he had said that the AI the disruption from AI rivals or matches the disruption from the Internet in terms of cyber security. So, in 2006 the Internet was already in full bloom, but do you get more of a sense of the context of the current situation? Are these really unprecedented times or is it just more of the same just a little faster, a little quicker? KJH: I think it's unprecedented and I've been talking to a lot of folks that I've known since 2006 in the industry who agree like this is not something we've seen before happening so fast. It's because of the tech AI just by nature things move more quickly. You can deal with things more quickly. So that makes sense. In the past we would see oh there's this trend towards this thing the cloud and it would happen very you know it would just happen like you'd watch it evolve. this just literally overnight happened and it's happening faster than some organizations are ready for to be honest but yeah I think looking back at history is always very useful right to see where we are where we're going and that's one of the things we want to look at I think in our next 20 years of Dark Reading is to look ahead too like we always try to look ahead but to kind of like keep that history in mind when you look at where we're coming from where we're going JC: What about quantum? Because that's something that keeps coming up like that are we going to be talking about that at RSAC 2027, 2028. KJH: Probably I mean we're talking about it, but it's not like the front and center issue right now, I think. But it is coming. It's definitely coming, but it's not like an emergency thing, I would say, right now. SP: I heard and I think it was Rob Clyde from ISACA refer to quantum as like the boring thing, which is like crazy because like you hear quantum, you think like some kind of futuristic crazy thing. And he's like, it's really just going to be like a something that organizations have to like get on board with and manage. It's not going to be like AI where it changes everything. And I thought that was just like really interesting. KJH: I think that's a really good way to describe it. Absolutely. I agree with that. SP: Yeah, my two cents. But, um, do you feel like you can tell us what might be next on the horizon for Informa TechTarget security coverage? Like how do you plan on addressing this like crazy fast evolving landscape uh with your sites in the coming years?  KJH: So, one of the things that we're really doubling down on is making sure when we're covering this new technology that we're actually covering it in a way that matters to our readers. And each of the three brands has a little bit different audience, right? That we're focusing on and how we're approaching that content. But one of the things we really try to do with every story that we write, especially with new technology stories, is you know what are what does that reader need to know? If you're writing for a CISO, what does the CISO have to know about this thing, this agenda? What do they what are their problems that they want to solve? You know, what can we tell them that will help them in their jobs. So that's something we're really mindful of and we've been really just refocusing on more and more all three brands. And again we cover things a little bit differently. So you're going to see maybe three different stories on that topic but it'll be one story might be for the SOC manager, one might be for the CISO, one might for this the risk manager. And our three brands, you know, we meet regularly. We do talk a lot about technology trends um with one another to kind of like bounce ideas off each other and make sure we're not missing anything. Um we're always kind of questioning things, right? That's how you evolve and that's kind of always been my philosophy is don't just sit on your laurels keep looking ahead what's next this industry has moved fast and relatively to most industries now even faster with AI so we have to be ahead all the time. JC: I always like Becky Bracken the way she describes it. I think it's the second time I've repeated it here like we I talk to the smartest people in the world and that's and as far as coverage goes these are smart people talking to the smartest people in the world about this amazing topic. KJH: Yeah, we have a lot of this industry. And that's what I’ve always said to reporters. Nobody in this industry doesn't want to share with you what they know. Like they're passionate about it. Don't be afraid to ask some questions. They want to share what they know with you and they're really good at sharing with what they know. I've been covering cyber for like 30 years and how you learn is you ask the dumb questions that you think are dumb, but they're not dumb because they want to tell you. They want to educate you. And the more you know and understand it, the better journalist you're going to be, the better content you're going to provide. So that's what we try to do. And I think she Becky's right. We have this industry that’s just full of a lot of really smart people who are willing to share their knowledge and we try to make sure we take advantage of that. JC: And SearchSecurity, Dark Reading, and Cybersecurity Dive are great places to absorb that knowledge.  SP: Absolutely. JC: So, I hope we can get you back here for 2027. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Kelly, for joining us.  KJH: Thank you for having me. It was great. JC: And Sabrina, thank you. Thank you. We have to go get in line for Hugh Jackman. ‘ SP: I know. I'm watching the crowd gather. I'm like, I got to go do my celeb hunting.  JC: And thank you to the crew here as well. Avery and Fred and Frank and MB and the whole crew here. You guys, they make us look professional, great, wonderful. SP: They do. They're really the best in the world. I love working with them any chance we get. And they really, they're the ones that has brought this to our audience. And so, big thank you to the crew, Moscone crew, and all their help and support. JC: And thank you for tuning in. Let's do this again next year. But until then, like and subscribe. About the Authors Kristina Beek Associate Editor, Dark Reading Kristina Beek is an associate editor at Dark Reading, where she covers a wide range of cybersecurity topics and spearheads video-related content. She is the creator and host of the Heard It From a CISO video series, where she interviews CISOs, directors, and other industry strategists to provide insights into the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. In addition to her editorial work, Kristina manages Dark Reading's social media channels and contributes to the platform's video coverage. Kristina graduated from North Carolina State University in 2021 with a degree in Political Science, concentrating in law and justice, and a minor in English. During her time at NC State, she honed her writing skills by contributing opinion pieces to the university's newspaper. After graduation, she began her career as a content editor before joining Dark Reading. Currently based in Washington, DC, you can find Kristina reading, taking walks in Georgetown, and wandering the museums surrounding the National Mall. Kelly Jackson Higgins Editor-in-Chief, Dark Reading Kelly Jackson Higgins is the Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading and VP, cybersecurity editorial at Informa TechTarget, where she leads editorial strategy for the company's three cybersecurity media brands: Dark Reading, SearchSecurity and Cybersecurity Dive. She is an award-winning veteran technology and business journalist with three decades of experience in reporting and editing for various technology and business publications and major media properties. Jackson Higgins was selected three consecutive times as one of the Top 10 Cybersecurity Journalists in the U.S., and was named as one of Folio's 2019 Top Women in Media. She has been with Dark Reading since its launch in 2006. Want more Dark Reading stories in your Google search results? 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